


A Different Kind of Prayer

by seamusdeanforever_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Companion Piece, M/M, POV Seamus Finnigan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-07
Updated: 2015-10-07
Packaged: 2018-04-25 07:21:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4951567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seamusdeanforever_archivist/pseuds/seamusdeanforever_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>By belladonnalin.</p><p>Seamus prayed all the time. Sometimes, he didnﾕt know what he was praying for. Companion piece to A Prayer That I Don't Dare To Be from Seamus' POV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Different Kind of Prayer

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Cora: this story was originally archived at [Seamus/Dean Forever](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Seamus/Dean_Forever), which I opened in 2002, and which was closed in 2005 when the server that hosted it was closed. To re-open the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in September 2015. An announcement was posted to OTW media channels, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact me using the e-mail address on the [Seamus/Dean Forever archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/seamusdeanforever/profile).
> 
> ***
> 
> DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. 
> 
> Author's Notes: The rosary I'm picturing Seamus using is here: http://www.margaretsrosaries.com/Images/mohagany_wood_rosary.jpg. The first prayer that Seamus recites is the Apostle's Creed, the second is the beginning of the Fatima, and the end is the end part of the Glory Be. Beta read by the fantastic beingothrwrldly, who also wrote the remix/companion piece The Prayer I Don't Dare To Be. DEAN POV! Go, read! Give feedback!

Seamus wasn't exactly a pious man, but he **was** Catholic. It's not that he didn't believe in the church he had been raised in. It wasn't even that he thought he wasn't a sinner. But stopping that, well ... he figured that if we're all sinners, really, what's the point?

At least this way, he got to choose his sins.

Besides, there was nothing more Catholic than picking and choosing what he was going to follow.

Confession, he could never get behind. It seemed to him like God would rather hear the admissions and apologies personally, right? It made much more sense than going through a middle-man or that leering Father O'Malley who spent a little too much time with Seamus' mam years ago, trying to have her detail out EVERY sin.

Nah, he wasn't one for confession.

But prayer was another story. Prayer was second nature to Seamus, like kicking off a broom to hover above the trees. He'd been doing both since before he was really consciously making decisions to do anything and both provided a kind of ... comfort.

The day before Seamus had left for Hogwarts in his first year, his gran had pressed a small, rough necklace into his hand.

"Magic is no substitute for prayer," she'd said simply.

Seamus didn't pray the rosary at 11 - really, only his da and his gran were Catholics. His mam thought that all religion was "fer right goms" and refused to speak of it again. Still, he'd been raised, more or less in The Church. He knew the basics.

Seamus also didn't want to be the only one kneeling down for a prayer before bed. He knew better, even at that young age, to draw too much attention to himself before he had felt out his roommates. So, in spite of the ire it would have drawn from his gran, he had looped the rosary under his shirt and wore it there for six years.

At first, he hadn't prayed out loud because he didn't want to be too different, too odd. That wasn't really his reason anymore - boys of 11 were a bit more concerned with "fitting in" than those at 17. Well, mostly.

Really, now, it was just habit.

He knew that the rosary was NEVER meant to be worn, only used for prayer. He knew that he was belittling the gift his gran had given him, that to wear the rosary as a kind of good-luck charm was sacrilegious.

But better than not using it at all, right?

*

Something had been off in this year, Seamus noticed, and he was DAMNED if he could figure it out. It wasn't the Rising Dark Lord stuff - that had entered into the realm of normality around Third Year. He guessed some of it could be the empty bed where Neville should have been. The first causality, he knew, but not the last.

It was the silence, he thought. People did speak, but in terse, tense sentences. People didn't laugh anymore. People didn't sing or hum or mention weird Muggle things like "football scores."

People had become streamlined. HE had become streamlined. Harder. Quieter.

"See, Dean?" he wanted to say. "I DO TOO have serious thoughts."

But Dean wasn't there. Dean was never there, lately. He wasn't "not there" in an "actually gone" way, but more in a "just barely beyond reach."

Just barely beyond touch.

Seamus' eyebrows drew together.

Since when did he want to touch Dean so much?

*

Death. Emptiness. War. Fear. Love. Touch. Love.

How was he supposed to untwist all of this? Seamus barely knew how to figure out Transfigurations. This was a lot harder.

Seamus began praying openly in the room. It's not like he had ever stopped, but he had been ... less obvious. But really, who cared what he was doing, anyway?

Nobody. He was just a bit player.

So he took his bit player prayers and started praying the rosary for the first time in his life.

Starting at the crucifix, he began: _I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth ..._

*

Nobody asked Seamus what he was doing. Of course, he figured, most of them probably thought it was a weird Irish thing and not a weird Catholic thing. Ron's family were wizards so far back that they probably pre-dated the Catholic Church. Harry, from what Seamus had gathered, didn't exactly understand much about the Muggle world he had grown up in.

Only Dean gave him a short, almost-hidden glance as Seamus knelt at the side of his bed for the fifth night in the row.

Seamus didn't know what the glance meant, but it haunted the rest of the decades and every time he started the Fatima Prayer, Seamus' mind flipped between Dean's glance and the look that was always found, now, in Harry Potter's blank eyes.

_O My Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell and lead all souls to heaven_

*

Seamus' prayers had continued for months. His gran had been right, after all. Magic was no substitute for prayer. Although the prayers made some things easier, made him feel that he had done his (small) part, they had also confused some things.

Dean was always in the prayers now. Always. Ever since that first night when he had glanced at Seamus as if trying to figure out a puzzle, his face popped up in every Hail Mary, every Fatima.

Dean was everywhere in Seamus' prayers, even when he wasn't everywhere in his life.

Seamus wondered, sometimes, if this was a worse kind of sacrilege than wearing the crucifix had ever been.

_... as it was, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen._


End file.
